Raspberry Pi passes quality control tests, cleared for delivery

The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced on Friday that their $35 educational computer intended to reignite computer programming in schools the world over has finished compliance testing, and has successfully gained the Conformité Européenne (CE) quality-control mark without requiring any modifications to the existing design.

In addition to the CE marking required for European sales, the Foundation has also completed testing for compliance with FCC regulations for the US as well as their equivalents for those wishing to purchase the device in Australia and Canada.

"We just received confirmation that the Raspberry Pi has passed EMC testing without requiring any hardware modifications," Liz Upton wrote on Raspberry Pi’s official blog. "There is still a mountain of paperwork for us to sign, and that then has to be looked over by RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell; but that’s a piece of cake compared to what we’ve been doing all week."

The completion of the approval process means that distributors Premier Farnell and RS Components can finally start delivering the mini-computers to customers. When asked about estimated delivery dates for those that have pre-ordered the first batch, Liz Upton responded, "at my most pessimistic, and bearing in mind that it’s a Bank Holiday, I’d say 7-10 days."

It’s one of several delays the Foundation has had to endure with the first production run of the Pi. Despite initial batch being offered without a case, there was confusion about whether the product qualified as a finished end product. The distributors disagreed on the classification stating it needed CE certification, which ultimately led them to refuse to ship to customers until it had been granted.

They had suffered another setback after the factory building the first production run soldered incompatible non-magnetic Ethernet jacks to the mini computers, which required the jacks to be removed and the correct magnetic ones soldered in their place.

The Raspberry Pi is no more immune to pre-production hiccups than any other (more experienced) computer company though, and it’s fair to say that most new products experience at least some minor setbacks as they progress from the design phase to mass production. With the Pi seemingly cleared for shipping, users can expect pre-orders arriving to their doorsteps soon.